Egypt removes business tycoon from terror list

A Cairo Criminal court has removed the name of the businessman Safwan Thabet, the grandson of outlawed Muslim Brotherhood’s second leader Hassan al-Hudaybi, from the terror list following his release in mid-January.

Safwan, the founder and former CEO of Juhayna Food Industries, and his son Seif El-Din were set free on January 21 from prison after a two-year detention.

Thabet has been kept in pretrial detention since December 2020 for allegedly joining the Muslim Brotherhood. His son, the deputy chairman of Juhayna, would be arrested in the same case in February 2021.

They were charged for joining and financing a terrorist group to help it change the regime by force and for aiding and abetting assaults against the army and police personnel and their institutions and of harming the economy.

Egypt, in 2013 after incumbent leader Fattah Al Sisi ascended to power after deposing the country’s first democratically elected leader Mohamed Morsi, outlawed the organization accused of financing terrorism.

Authorities added Safwan to the terrorism list in April 2018 for a five-year term, a decision that was scheduled to expire in April 2023.